


All That Is and Used to Be

by Jael



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: After AvaLance breakup, F/M, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Leonard Snart Lives, Light Angst, Past Character Death, Sara has "people leaving" issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29146287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jael/pseuds/Jael
Summary: Fourteen years after Leonard Snart apparently died at the Oculus, Sara Lance is alone on the Waverider, working to rebuild the Legends and trying her best to pretend she's all right.And then she hears a voice.
Relationships: CaptainCanary - Relationship, Leonard Snart & Mick Rory, Sara Lance & Mick Rory, Sara Lance/Leonard Snart, Team Legends - Relationship
Comments: 82
Kudos: 78





	1. At the Mercy of the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> I promise that Snart's Seven is still going! But I heard a song and got an idea...and 20,000+ words later...
> 
> I'll be posting this a day at a time for a week, but it's already done. :) Many thanks to Pir8grl for the beta.

_There's a ship out on the ocean, at the mercy of the sea  
It's been tossed about, lost and broken, wandering aimlessly  
And love, somehow you know that ship is…me_

“When You Come Back to Me Again,” Garth Brooks

* * *

**2030, The Waverider, outside Central City**

“Ow.”

Sara Lance opened her eyes, staring briefly at the small digital clock there (set to local time at the moment, of course) before closing them again. She’d actually managed a decent amount of sleep, but after kicking butt with some of the local heroes last night, pretty much everything hurt. Even a past in the League of Assassins and an ability to time travel couldn’t completely combat the reality of being in your mid-40s.

Oh, she’d bounced back—relatively quickly, experience had taught her, especially compared with some of her peers. But that didn’t mean her shoulders and the calf where she’d taken a wicked hit last night weren’t still pretty damned sore.

And so, she continued to lie there, trying to relax, convincing herself that there really wasn’t a reason to get up yet. It’s not like there was anyone else on the ship at the moment. Barry was still in charge of the STAR Labs team, and even if Wally and some of the new kids were taking over more these days, Barry was no younger than she was.

“Kids,” she muttered into her pillow, smiling a bit despite herself. “It’s not even the next generation yet. Still so damned _young_.”

Maybe some of those _kids_ would become the next round of Legends. The ship was too empty right now—just Sara and Ginevra, the AI that Gideon and Ray had created to take Gideon’s place when the original AI had downloaded herself into a humanoid body and taken herself off to see the world. And Ginevra didn’t yet have nearly the personality Gideon had acquired, though the latter had assured Sara that—without the Time Masters keeping an eye on the advanced AIs—she’d eventually get there.

(And then Ginevra would probably decide to leave too, a melancholy part of her mind pointed out. She quashed it.)

The others had left too, just like all the other Legends had over the years. Mick had been the last original other than Sara, and he’d retired a few years back, resisting as long as possible before a blown-out knee and nasty concussion had tipped the balance. He was 60 now, writing regularly again and newly a grandpa via Lita (herself just retired from a year as a Legend) and her partner, and by all accounts and observations, he was happy.

Sara missed him fiercely.

Sara sighed, opening her eyes again and sitting up, groaning and stretching as ill-used muscles creaked audibly in protest. Mick wasn’t the only one who’d grown older. At 44, she was still in good shape, but she didn’t bounce back quite like she’d used to.

Eh. She could still run circles around most of the “kids.” With an admittedly weary chuckle, she rose from the bed, stretching again and throwing her hands toward the ceiling as she worked out some of the kinks in her back.

“It’s not the years,” she told the mirror whimsically, “it’s the mileage.”

And then, nearly immediately, she winced—and not because of sore muscles.

The last time she’d heard that quote…

* * *

_“How’s it coming?”_

_Leonard glanced up at her from his seat on the floor of the cargo bay…their cargo bay, she tended to think of it…and smirked. He still had the exercise ball Rip had given him after his hand had been replaced, squeezing in it in the new appendage and winging it across the room in a fairly typical example of restless energy, for him._

_Of course, he also still had quite the array of bruises on his face now, from his encounter with Mick, but—well, at least they’d worked something out. Sara smirked back at him as she let her back rest against the wall and slowly slid down to sit on the floor across from him._

_“You know what I mean,” she prodded him a bit, seeing the gleam of innuendo in his eyes. “The hand.” She paused, then said lightly, “Not that you’re not a mess in other ways, but I know…I know it bothered you.”_

_It trod, perhaps, a bit closely to_ feelings _for the two of them, but fact was, Sara did know how much the pain and weakness from the new hand had bothered Leonard, and she knew how much he depended on his hands as a thief and sharpshooter. And, hell, after he’d been the one to invoke “About_ you _?” after that earlier conversation, Sara had sworn that she wasn’t going to give him the out again._

_Leonard met her gaze thoughtfully for a long moment. Then he glanced down at his hand, still gripping the ball, and shrugged. “Eh,” he said, “it hurts. But it’s getting better.”_

_“And your face?” Sara kept her tone light._

_A spark in those ice-blue eyes. “Same.”_

_“And everything else?” They were dancing around the edge of flirtation again, but Sara just couldn’t help herself._

_An actual real smile. “Well, y’know,” Leonard drawled, flexing his fingers around the exercise ball and then winging it off the wall next to her. Sara didn’t even flinch, but then, she was pretty sure he hadn’t expected her to. “It’s not the years.” The smile widened flirtatiously as he met her eyes again. “It’s the mileage.”_

* * *

She could still hear his voice. Fourteen years later, she could still hear it. As snarky as always, drawl in place (usually), unaged…

While she was now the same age he’d been then.

The years hadn’t meant much to her then in regard to their respective ages, but now, oh, it felt like an eternity since…since she’d dragged Mick out of the Oculus chamber, intending to go back, pulled onto the ship instead even as she’d cursed out Rip and struggled, and then watched the explos…

Sara turned away from the mirror abruptly, unable to look herself in the eye any longer.

If there was one thing she’d learned as a time traveler, it was that you couldn’t live in the past.

* * *

A good workout, a shower, and a cup of coffee later, Sara had managed to get herself back onto a more even keel, firmly tuning her mind away from regrets and back to the present—and the job. While there wasn’t anything in particular—villains past or present, magical creatures, demons, etc.—to handle with the Waverider right now, there was always the timeline to keep an eye on. Even if she had to do it by herself.

Sara ripped her mind from that (again) and lifted her voice from where she sat in her office, looking over time maps. “Gin?”

“Yes, Captain Lance?” The younger AI returned promptly. Her voice was reminiscent of Gideon’s familiar tones, but still very much her own—perhaps like a younger sister or daughter. Sara rather liked that notion. “What can I do for you?”

Ginevra was still a little overformal at times. Sara was working on that. She smiled briefly as she took another sip of her coffee. “I was just wondering if you’ve heard back on any of the feelers I put out for potential new Legends.” Gin often took messages when Sara was sleeping or when she decided Sara wouldn’t want to be disturbed.

“No, Captain Lance.” The AI sounded almost sad delivering that news. “No one has contacted the ship. Not even that nice Mr. Steele.”

Sara blinked, sitting back in her chair a moment. “No one,” she repeated. “Not even anyone taking me up on a _look_ at the ship?” She’d spent a good bit of time recruiting during this stop, and she’d been so sure…

“No.”

The single syllable left no room for doubt.

“Well.” She took a deep breath, struggling to get back to her former optimism. “There’s still a few days before we planned to leave. That’s still time.”

“The twins and young Mr. and Ms. Palmer would all love to join you,” Ginevra pointed, very obviously trying to be encouraging. “As would Ms. Jackson.”

Sara laughed, though she knew there was little humor in the sound. “The Allen twins and Nate Palmer are 8, and Martina is barely a year older,” she shot back. “And Ruve is only five. Maybe someday. And Ronnie Stein is 13. Maybe someday he’ll decide that he can be both a scientist like his mom and a…a space ranger…like his grandfather.”

She couldn’t help smiling at the thought. Ronnie was brilliant, but he wasn’t interested in adventure, not yet; he loved the pure pursuit of knowledge and science with a passion that most 13-year-olds of Sara’s acquaintance reserved for video games. One way or another, she was pretty sure, he’d change the world one of these days.

His grandfather would be so proud.

Sara blinked, suddenly aware of tears welling up in her eyes, and fiercely dashed them away, getting to her feet. Oh, this wasn’t good. She was getting maudlin in her near-middle age, and she didn’t have time for this. There was too much to do, still a role for the Legends in the timeline, and damn it, this was her job.

But…

Damn it.

The little unexpected trip down memory road this morning had opened the floodgates whether she’d wanted them opened or not, and the painful memories of lost teammates poured out in a scorching hot flood as she leaned against her desk.

Martin. Rip. Even Amaya, lost in her own way, to time.

And Nate. He’d been on the ship longer than anyone but Sara and Mick, 10 years before a routine mission had gone horribly wrong and a shard of super-dense metal wielded by a time pirate had pierced even his metallic body. He’d died instantly, a quip still on his lips and surprise in his eyes.

No one’s fault, not really (no matter how much Sara wanted to blame herself), but in some ways, it’d been the start of everything changing.

Ava had left soon after Nate’s loss. His death had hit the former Bureau leader hard, and she’d decided that it was time for both her and Sara to leave the Waverider for a “normal” life, one where an ordinary mission (as ordinary as their missions ever got) wouldn’t abruptly result in a friend’s ugly death. A wedding, a house, a picket fence, a dog, maybe some kids—and a nice, boring job.

Sara, already a wreck after the tragedy, had been dismayed and then furious by her girlfriend’s assumption and one-sided planning. The resulting fight had been brutal, and words had been spoken that could never be taken back. Not that Sara, to be perfectly honest, had ever really wanted to.

Ava had left the day after the funeral. She and her wife of three years now lived in National City, parents of a 2-year-old girl, and Sara rarely spoke to her.

John was gone too, and Sara could only hope he was still alive. He’d simply vanished about a year before Nate’s death, and she hadn’t seen him since. But it was John. There was no reason to believe that he wouldn’t come sauntering back onto the ship one of these days, smug and near ageless, a quip and a cigarette ready.

Really. There wasn’t.

She’d keep telling herself that.

Plenty of Legends were still alive as far as it went, they were just…former Legends. Kendra and Carter, Wally, Zari and Behrad, Amaya’s granddaughter Mari, all those other assorted heroes on the ship for a year or two or three before time travel got old and they returned to their homes and times. She got together with some of them for old times’ sake, stopped by to help with trouble in their cities and times, but she always kept coming back to the Waverider. The Waverider was _home_.

Sara had no doubt of that. But it was just so empty, right now. And, oh, she was so very sick of that revolving door…

Shaking her head, she started for the door, stepping out on to the bridge and resolving to drag herself out of this morass, even if it took a healthy dose of Rob Roy’s rum. (She had her own stash now, thanks to a stop in Scotland three years ago.)

“Knock it off,” she told herself sternly as she went. “Go visit STAR Labs and drag Iris and Caitlin and the others out for girls’ night. Call Felicity and Diggle and see if they have any more ideas on recruiting. Stop being maudlin and got on with your job. Time isn’t going to save itself.”

“Sara!”

Especially on the heels of her little trip down memory lane, the voice, crystal-clear and sounding so close that Leonard Snart might have been standing right behind her, knocked the breath right out of her.

A feeling like ice cascaded down Sara’s spine as she whirled, hands going up even as she wasn’t sure whether she meant to fight or…

No one was there.

“Ginevra!” she yelled, turning around, scanning the empty bridge again and again. “Was that you? What the hell?”

“Was what me, Captain Lance?” The AI sounded startled.

“You didn’t hear that?” If Ginevra hadn’t heard it…

But then it happened again. Different words, same voice. Same goddamned familiar voice, with something she’d rarely heard in it while he was alive: a plea.

“Assassin…help…”

“I heard that!” Gin volunteered. “But I don’t know where it’s coming from.”

Sara barely heard her.

“Leonard,” she whispered, then lifted her voice again, eyes scanning the readings on the ship, looking for something, some kind of aberration, some kind of sign. “Len! Where are you? What…”

“Sara…” Clear and strong and unquestionably _him_.

And then, gone. Again, without even an echo.


	2. Across the Water

_'Cause there's a lighthouse, in a harbor, shining faithfully,_

_Pouring its light out, across the water, for this sinking soul to see_

_That someone out there still believes in me_

* * *

Mick had an apartment downtown these days—a real apartment, not just a safe house—in an area that was still straddling the line between gritty urban and upscale yuppy. (Did anyone even say “yuppy” anymore? Sara wondered.) He tended to grumble about gentrification, but he liked the place, and it was going to take more than the odd yoga studio or café cropping up in the neighborhood to drive him off.

Plus, Lita and her partner, Jamie, lived not so far away with little Alistair Michael, and Sara had the firm impression Mick enjoyed being a grandpa more than he’d ever thought possible. She herself was still having trouble wrapping her brain around the idea.

She could only imagine what Leonard would make of it.

She resolutely turned her mind away from the question of Leonard for the moment, though, studying the living room as she waited for Mick to finish up a phone call with his agent in the other room. The room was comfy and crowded, though far neater than his rooms on the Waverider had been, still crammed with books and papers—and a black-and-white rat dubbed “Axel V” watching her intently from its cage in a corner.

It looked…homey. And the only sign of fire at all was the assortment of candles scattered about on tables and windowsills. Sara knew that Mick still had his heat gun, but he kept it in a gun safe in the bedroom, accessible only with his own fingerprint. (“Kid’s gonna start crawling one day. Want to be safe.”)

Sara was still lost in her own thoughts when Mick strolled out of the kitchen, having ended his phone call, and handed Sara an iced tea without comment, even as he cracked his own beer. He’d obviously figured that she’d ridden her motorcycle here, and he wasn’t wrong.

Sara took a sip and sighed as Mick plopped down on the couch nearby, putting his bad leg up onto a coffee table with his own sigh as he leaned his cane against the couch. He drained maybe half the beer and then flicked a glance her way, an interesting expression on his face. Maybe he knew her far too well.

His words confirmed that.

“Not that you’re not always welcome, Blondie, but what brings you back today?” Mick rumbled, looking back at his drink. “Thought you were planning to head out.”

Sara took a sip of her tea, trying to decide where to start.

Mick eyed her, waiting.

“But something’s got your goat, hasn’t it?” he asked abruptly. “What’s up?”

Sara glared at him for a moment, lowering her glass, before she decided that prevaricating simply wasn’t useful. Not with Mick. Not now.

“You remember,” she said carefully, not quite meeting his eyes. This wasn’t going to be a casual thing, not between the two…the three…of them. “In the year after…after Leonard died. You heard him a few times. On the ship. Right?”

Silence answered her. Sara waited, knowing that she was treading on painful territory, but…she needed to know. She needed to talk to someone who wouldn’t outright dismiss what she’d heard and, she thought, _felt_.

When she finally managed to look up at Mick, his expression wasn’t quite what she’d been expecting. It was…pitying?

Seriously?

Rather irked, Sara opened her mouth to point that out, but Mick beat her to it, tone low and serious and infuriatingly gentle.

“Yeah,” he said, putting down the bottle. “ ‘Saw’ him too.” He took a deep breath. “But, Sara…it wasn’t real. The professor and I figured that out. Just…just wishful thinkin’.”

“No,” Sara blurted out before she could consider a more rational response. “Maybe it wasn’t. I heard him today, Mick, while I was standing on the bridge. Clear as day. He said my name…he asked for help…”

But her friend’s expression didn’t change. Mick held her gaze, but he also shook his head slowly, clearly dismissing her words.

“Snart’s dead,” he said roughly, grabbing his cane and getting to his feet again. “Long gone. Don’t go down that road, Blondie. Ain’t worth it.”

“Mick. I swear. I heard…”

“Yeah, well, so did I. And it _wasn’t real_.” The words were abrupt and blunt, and Sara blinked a little at them. Mick didn’t back down, though, lifting his eyes to hers and holding her gaze. “C’mon. This is like…one of the few times I’ve even heard you mention his name in, what, 14 years? What’s going on?”

It wasn’t…OK, it wasn’t unfair. Sara let out a breath, still watching him, all too aware that he was right. She had done her best to ignore the fact that Leonard Snart had even existed for far too long, shying away from his memory like she avoided so any other topics that hurt, and now she couldn’t really blame Mick for resenting that.

“Mick…” she said a little helplessly. “I did hear it. So did Ginevra.”

But her friend’s expression didn’t change. There was sympathy there, but also a faint sort of hurt and exasperation, and Sara knew then that she wasn’t going to get anywhere with this line of questioning. She closed her eyes tightly a moment and opened them to see Mick’s expression changed more to sympathy, if no more belief.

“Boss,” he said gruffly, “you…lonely?” He continued as Sara digested that. “I mean, I can come back. To the ship. Missed the job, really. I could…”

“No,” Sara told him abruptly. “No.” She smiled, an expression she knew came across as probably more woebegone than cheery. “You have a grandson to teach how to misbehave. And books to write. I’m fine. This was probably just…just an out-of-control memory. Something like that.”

Mick’s eyes didn’t lose any of their concern. “You sure, Blondie? I mean…” He glanced away, as if to spot potential or past Legends hiding in corners, then back at her. “I bet Gideon’d be happy to return for a bit. And…”

But Sara had had enough.

“No,” she told him again, backing toward the door. “I’m fine. It was just…a lapse. You’re right. It wasn’t real.”

The words tasted like betrayal.

“Sara…”

But Sara was out the door and down the hallway, taking the stairs two at a time, putting distance between herself and her former teammate—and his stinging, tolerant, painful pity.

* * *

“Ginevra, set a course for the Vanishing Point.”

Sara had taken the long way back to where she’d parked the ship, taking the time to get her jumbled thoughts more in order and to consider Mick’s words. Far from changing her mind, however, the opportunity had just solidified her course of action in her head.

She hadn’t imagined Leonard’s voice. She _hadn’t_. And if she hadn’t, and he was asking for help…well, it made sense to go back to the place where he’d…where she’d last seen him.

But while she took the captain’s chair and strapped in, the immediate and chipper response she’d expected from Ginevra didn’t come. And when the AI did speak, her voice was reluctant and uncertain.

“Mr. Rory says you shouldn’t go there without at least someone—someone besides me—to watch your back,” she told Sara. “ _Especially_ there.”

Sara frowned, leaning back in her seat. “Did Mick call you today?” she asked, trying not to sound too irritated. Ginevra was still so very young for an AI.

“No. This was earlier. After Ms. McCabe and Mr. Hawke chose to leave the ship.”

The first time the Waverider had been truly empty, save for her. Sara bit her lip, fighting back a complicated mix of emotions, wondering what had possessed Mick to think she’d want to go to the Vanishing Point on her own—before now, anyway. She’d been there plenty of times in the past 14 years, of course, for varying reasons.

“Mick’s not here,” she finally told the AI, trying to keep her tone reasonable, “and I’m the captain. Set a course.”

“Yes, Captain Lance.”

* * *

Sara stayed away from the portion of the complex where the so-called Paragons had lived, if you could call it that, during their time there. She never needed to see that place again. Of course, she thought as she walked slowly toward the wreck of the wellspring building, she didn’t particularly want to revisit this set of memories either.

_“Where’s Raymond and Mick?”_

_“Ray is in my pocket and Mick has elected to stay.”_

_“Why?”_

Sara’s footsteps paused briefly, then continued, echoing in the stark silence as she walked toward the pile of rumble where the wellspring once was. She had no idea how the place even still stood at all, given what had happened here…

_“Get outta here.”_

_“Not without you, Mick.”_

She closed her eyes and listened before walking out onto the platform but couldn’t hear anything. There was no life here, no wind…she never did figure out how it kept an atmosphere of sorts. Looking around with a sigh, she advanced to the center, where the device once stood, doing her best to ignore the chills running down her spine and the way her heart still hurt.

“OK, crook,” she muttered, closing her eyes again. “If you’re here, somehow, now’s the time to say something.”

Silence.

Sara breathed in and out steadily, trying for some of the much-needed equilibrium she got from meditation, listening hard, reaching out as if she could still read minds. (Thank god she could no longer read minds.) If she could just sense _something_ …something to tell her, to tell Mick and the others, that she wasn’t imagining things…

But…nothing. The same eerie silence, the same sense of nothingness. Sara opened her eyes again with an explosive sigh, turning around a few times just to make sure nothing had changed, and then sighed again, softer, as she took another step closer to the center of the chamber and the few fallen, blackened rocks that now perched there, an unintentional memorial. She ran a hand through her hair, then lowered it to sit, lightly, on the top rock.

“…Sara!”

Sara’s eyes flew open, a gasp exploding from her lips as she whipped around, staring out across the expanse around her, toward the narrow bridge leading back to the main area.

Leonard Snart stood there, looking back at her.

And he looked…real. Very real, and just the same as he’d looked that day 14 years ago, black leather and tight jeans, short, silvered hair, and ice-blue eyes—eyes that were currently widened as he realized that she’d heard him…and saw him.

It was one of the most open and raw expressions Sara had ever seen on him—and she was realizing, standing there in a bit of a daze, that she remembered just about every second, even after trying so very hard to forget.

“Leonard,” she said, hearing her voice wobble and taking another deep breath to counteract it. “Snart. It’s really you. What…”

But Leonard was looking down in his hands in amazement, like he was surprised to see him too, and then back up at Sara, still with that raw expression on his face.

“Sara,” he said, staring at her. “You’re here.”

Sara was moving before she even thought about it, crossing the walkway to the main part of the building. Tentatively, she reached out…only to have her hand pass right through Len’s shoulder, as if he was mere illusion.

He didn’t seem to notice, though, that gaze still fixed on her as if she were…a lifeline, a lodestone, something that was the only real thing around him. An anchor.

“I’m glad you’re here, Assassin,” he said, a little of his old attitude back in his voice, though it faltered with his next words. “Because I don’t think I’m going to be, much longer.”


	3. On a Prayer, in a Song

_On a prayer, in a song, I hear your voice, and it keeps me hanging on  
Oh, raining down, against the wind, I'm reaching out,  
'Til we reach the circle's end_

_When you come back to me again_

* * *

The words seemed to echo in the cavernous space around them.

“What do you mean?” Sara managed after a moment.

“I’m…I can’t…” Leonard’s month was a straight line, tension in every angle of his face. He glanced away, but not before Sara could see the expression in his eyes, a look that was still raw.

“I’m not always here,” he said finally, voice a rasp empty of the insouciant drawl she remembered. “And I don’t mean the Vanishing Point.” He waved a hand. “ _Here_ , this world. I fade….and it’s just images and voices and time until I manage to struggle back.”

He met her eyes again…and the pain in them took Sara’s breath away.

“I’m _losing_ myself, Assassin,” he said. “Don’t have much longer.”

Sara was already shaking her head at the words, as if the gesture could undo hearing them, could undo the meaning in them. “No,” she told him. “No. We’re going to fix this. That you’re here at all, it’s a miracle, and…doing the impossible, it’s kind of our thing, right?”

The defeat in his expression was hard to take; she’d never really seen Leonard defeated, except for maybe at the end—or what she’d thought was the end. And even then, he’d made his choice, to save Mick and the rest of them and thumb his nose at the Time Masters in the best way he could. He’d gone out on his terms.

Except he hadn’t. And now he was losing himself. Sara swallowed, remember the Pit and the aftermath.

“You say you struggle back,” she managed. “How?”

Leonard’s gaze stayed steadily on her as he shrugged. “Some things make it easier to come back than others, but it’s getting more and more difficult,” he said. “I have to be…aware…to do it, and I’m not much, anymore.”

“You’re…in a different dimension? A different Earth?” The Crisis changed a lot, but…

But Leonard shook his head, a brief, rough gesture. “Nothing so coherent,” he told her. “Just…blue light.” For a second, though he seemed to be unaware of it, his eyes lit up with an uncanny light, one that put Sara uneasily in mind of the time stream and the wellspring that used to be here.

And then it faded, and he didn’t even seem to be aware of it. “And images. Sounds.” Leonard waved a hand again. “I see things…but I think I’m not as separate from all of it as I used to be.”

That sounded almost…familiar.

“Like the Speed Force?” Sara asked, hope flickering, thinking back on things she’d heard from Barry Allen.

Leonard snorted, a familiar and welcome sound. But… “Maybe,” he allowed. “You’d have to ask Allen. Ain’t ever seen him there. Well, not in person.”

But Sara had turned, hope growing as she thought. “I’ll be back,” she told him breathlessly, taking a few steps toward the exit. “I’m going to go get help. I know…”

“No!”

The cry was raw, panicked…terrified. It was hard to believe it’d even come from Leonard Snart, Captain Cold, always so cool, calm, and collected. Sara stopped in her tracks, turning again, stunned by the expression on his face. And then he…flickered, his image wavering before going oddly 2D and then back to almost normal before flickering again.

“I don’t know if I can make it back again, if you leave,” he told her, voice fading in and out as well, tone defeated in a way that hurt her heart. “But…” He took another deep breath. “Just stay a bit. Before.”

Before…?

_Oh_.

He expected her to leave him again, there at the Oculus wellspring, to walk away and leave him to fade, gone gradually this time instead of in a massive explosion, but still gone. When it’d taken her this long to even figure out he was still alive, in a way, at all.

No. Not this time. _Not this time_.

“I’m just going to the ship,” Sara promised him, glancing over her shoulder to where she knew the Waverider waited. “I’ll be back in minutes. I swear. I promise. We’re going to fix this, Leonard. I _promise_.”

* * *

“Ginevra!”

Sara didn’t waste time; even as she waited for a response from the AI, she moved quickly to her quarters on the ship and grabbed her go-bag, opening it and throwing a few other items in. The Paragons hadn’t had to worry about hunger or thirst during their stint at the Vanishing Point, she remembered, and while it’d sort of sucked, she should make it a few days just fine. “Ginevra?”

“Here, Captain Lance.” The AI’s tone was a bit uncertain. “What do you think you’ve found?”

Sara paused and scowled in the direction of the ceiling, which she always tended to do with first Gideon and now Ginevra as part of the ship. But she decided to leave the AI’s wording alone, for now. “I need you to take the Waverider and go back to current-time Central City and find Mick. Get him to come with you.”

She grabbed a few books and thrust them into the bag too, thinking hard. “And get him to bring Cisco Ramon. Barry Allen too, if possible, and…” A pause. “Lisa Snart and Gideon might be good as well. But last I knew, neither of them were in the city, and don’t waste time looking for them. Get back here ASAP.”

“Captain Lance, what is going on?” Ginevra sounded a bit—well, more than a bit—unsettled. “I will not leave you here. Mr. Rory would _not_ be happy. And…”

“Gin.” Sara held up a hand. “This is what I need you to do. Tell Mick…tell Mr. Rory that it’s about Leonard Snart…that I’ve seen him, talked to him, but he needs help.” She grabbed one of her bottles of scotch, because what the hell. “And _help_ right now is Cisco Ramon.”

Ginevra argued and Ginevra worried, but in the end, Ginevra did as she was told.

* * *

To Sara’s great relief, Leonard’s shifting, shimmering form was still there when she hurried back into the wreckage of the wellspring building. She saw tension leave his shoulders, too, as he saw her, and the two of them merely stared at each other a long moment before Sara drew in a deep breath and moved forward.

“The Waverider’s getting help,” she told him as she drew near, lowering her bag to the ground. “Well, pretty sure it will be help. I’ll wait here with you.”

Even while flickering, Leonard wore a rather skeptical expression. “Help?”

And there was the drawl. Sara was so glad to hear it that she grinned at him as she knelt to unzip her bag, pulling out a bedroll and then a few extra-bright camp lights so the space wasn’t quite so grim.

“Yep,” she said, arranging things and deciding to leave out that “help” included Cisco. From what she knew, the two men hadn’t exactly fans of each other’s…and that was before what Sara was pretty sure was a regular “friends with benefits” arrangement between Cisco and Lisa Snart. “Including Mick.” She glanced up at him as she positioned the lights. “He’ll be…he’ll be very glad to see you.”

But Leonard’s expression was no less skeptical. “Like he was on the ship? Back before that goddamned crappy copy of me Thawne found showed up?” A pause. “So glad to see me that he let the professor do fucking _brain surgery_ on him?”

Sara blinked…then dragged in a startled breath, rising to her feet and facing him. “That _was_ you? He was so sure he was hallucinating…that you said things you’d never have said…”

Leonard shrugged, a familiar, abrupt two-shouldered gesture that was still so damned familiar. “I was…a little bitter at the time,” he admitted, turning away, then back toward her. “I was stronger, then. Wasted my time instead of asking for help. Still wasn’t sure what my…situation…was.”

Sara remembered all too well how she’d neglected Mick in that time, something she still regretted—and frankly, how she’d shied away from even the thought of Leonard, letting her teammate mourn alone.

“I…should have followed up with that,” she admitted. “But I thought…well. It was a weird time.” She’d been trying so hard to act like she wasn’t hurting too.

Leonard gave her a lopsided sort of smile, an expression she’d rarely seen on him. “Eh,” he said, glancing away. “It was.”

Silence, for a moment. Then Sara, sinking down onto her bedroll, offered: “What do you mean, stronger?”

After a second, Len sank down next to her, barely flickering. “Well. There was a while after…after the explosion…before I was really aware at all…”

* * *

At the Vanishing Point, it was very, very easy to lose track of time. Well, the place _was_ still timeless, even without the wellspring, so Sara supposed that made sense.

The only reason she was aware of the passage of time at all was in the moments when she realized just how long they’d been talking…and how many things had been said.

As it turned out, Leonard could only really…manifest, for lack of a better word…in places, and at moments, when something in particular anchored him to this reality. Places he’d been, places he had a connection to, and sometimes even items. And when people thought of him, especially strongly, and especially people he’d likewise felt a strong connection to.

Even with a weaker connection, sometimes he could see and hear the “real world”…even if the people there couldn’t see or hear him.

Mick, in his mourning, had pulled him to the Waverider strongly, powerfully enough that he could even affect the things around him on a limited basis—until what Len called the “crappy copy” showed up and interfered. Leo had apparently done the same, the presence of a Leonard-lookalike unintentionally keeping the Earth-1 version from maintaining a connection.

That smarted, especially since Sara herself had allowed Leo to stay on the Waverider for a time. But that wasn’t even the worst of it.

Leonard had never managed to manifest in front of Sara before, not even merely audibly. (Said bluntly, though with him looking away.) He didn’t point out that she’d rather fiercely refused to think of him, but Sara knew it all too well. And apparently the times she had, had been rare and brief enough that it hadn’t mattered enough.

Until recently.

“I never managed to reached Lisa, either,” Leonard said, frowning off into the distance as Sara took a few steady breaths, grappling with guilt and regret. “There were times I could see her…but she stayed away from anywhere I’d been.” A pause, and then with his own great regret. “I suppose I…get that.”

As time went on, he’d faded into the….what Sara was mentally calling the Time Force…all too often, with Mick and Sara and Lisa thinking of him less and less, especially in places he was connected to, like the Waverider.

And even more especially, the Vanishing Point.

After a while, they sat there in silence, watching each other, Leonard still flickering a bit here and there.

“I know a lot of people are…gone,” he said eventually, quietly. “The professor. Rip?”

“Yeah.” Sara swallowed heavily. “Nate…maybe you saw him a time or two. And then those who just…left. Mostly folks you never met in person.” Given the conversation, she decided to reach into her bag and pull out the scotch. This was definitely a conversation for scotch. “Kendra and Carter, of course. Amaya. Jax. Wally. Charlie. A…Ava. Zari. Behrad. John. Mick. Others.”

She’d forgotten a glass. Shrugging, Sara opened the bottle and took a swig, reminded briefly of the first time she’d tasted Rob Ray’s scotch, when she’d been sitting with her back against Leonard’s seat and they’d passed the bottle back and forth.

From the brief smile in Leonard’s eyes and the direction of his gaze. Sara guessed that he remembered too. After a brief hesitation, she held the bottle out to him, meeting his eyes.

He hesitated…and then reached for it.

His fingers went right through the bottle.

Sara was pretty sure they both bit back a rush of disappointment, but…sitting here, with Leonard, the _real_ Leonard, with her, she couldn’t dwell on it for long.

Who knew how much longer they had?

“Do you…” she started, looking down at the bottle. “Do you know how long it’s been? Any of the other things that have happened since you’ve been gone?”

Len was quiet so long that Sara glanced back up, wondering at the look in his eyes. He cleared his throat, looking away, then back at her, seeming to study her features, and…o _h_.

“Yeah, I’m older,” she quipped, toasting him with the bottle. “Few more wrinkles, few more scars. Little bit of silver in my hair. Whereas you haven’t aged at all.”

Leonard’s eyes crinkled a little, though his gaze stayed direct.

“Assassin,” he said quietly, leaning forward, tone low and intense. “If you’re…or even if you aren’t…fishing for compliments, you should know that you’re more goddamned beautiful than ever.”

That was…far more blatantly complimentary than Leonard had ever been in the past. Sara blinked again, feeling heat spread across her face, and eyed him with all the skepticism she could muster.

“Uh huh,” she shot back, hiding behind their old snark and sarcasm. “Sure. I’m good with the years…OK with the mileage…but that’s ridiculous.”

But…his eyes stayed on her, direct and blue, the heat in them unmistakable.

“Sara,” he said again, quietly, “I’ve never been more serious.”

Sara opened her mouth to response. Closed it. Acknowledged, to herself at least, that she had no good idea what to say to this, even as she also acknowledged that she was just as attracted to Leonard as ever.

And that she was, ultimately, a coward when it came to this sort of thing.

“Still,” she said, finally, looking down at the bottle of scotch. “A lot of other things have happened in addition to…to me getting a few gray hairs. Did you know that…”

And she took refuge in other people’s lives, as opposed to her own.


	4. For All that We’ve Done, We Can Undo

_There's a moment, that we all come to,_

_In our own time, in our own space  
For all that we've done, we can undo _

_If our heart's in the right place_

* * *

Eventually, Sara had to sleep, even though she didn’t want to, and she woke in borderline panic, praying (to what, she wasn’t sure) that Leonard was still there, hadn’t faded, hadn’t…

But he was. Still sitting there, looking a bit more transparent and…and flicker-y…than before, but still _there_.

Sara let out a deep breath, sitting up. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Leonard flicked a glance toward her, that lopsided smile in place again. She really sort of liked that smile. “Still here.”

“Good.” They studied each other a moment before Sara sighed, glancing around the chamber and then back to him.

“I don’t know how long it will take them to get back here,” she said tentatively. “I mean…are you holding on OK?”

For just a moment, blue light flickered in Leonard’s eyes again.

“I’m OK,” he said, as it faded, then repeated, “Still here.”

Sara wasn’t sure what to say.

“They’ll be back soon,” she said, after a few moments.

“I hope so.”

* * *

One could never tell exactly how long it would take to get to, or from, the Vanishing Point. It constantly varied, and Sara knew that.

But watching Leonard fade even more, over the course of hours, she really hoped it would be soon.

She tried to get him to go back to…wherever…in case it recharged him, somehow, but he refused, convinced that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to get back to her. As Sara truly had no idea, she let that be, but the alternative, just watching, hurt like hell. As if Leonard, alive in a way after all, was now dying by inches in front of her, albeit with no injury, no illness, no blood.

In an attempt to distract both of them, she told some of the funniest stories from the past 14 years on the Waverider, from Stein singing at NASA mission command to some of John’s crazier antics and battles with Gideon over smoking on the ship. She told him about how Mick had started writing again, and how Lisa had started a very successful bounty-hunting business. About the Allens’ “tornado twins” and Gideon’s choice to take on an android body and go out to see the world.

She left some things out. Mick should be able to tell him about Lita himself, and she wasn’t touching the Lisa-and-Cisco situation with a 12-foot pole. But most things, from the big stuff to the little things, she tried to relate. Just in case.

Leonard listened to all of it quietly, a furrow of concentration in his brow, offering the occasional pithy or snarky comment. A few times, eyes intent, he asked Sara if something in particular had happened, an odd note in his voice.

Sometimes, Sara could verify it—Mick with the fire totem, Damien Darhk’s death, the surprising elopement of Caitlin, Frost, and Harry Wells, even national news like the election of the Harris/Abrams ticket in 2024 and 2028. Sometimes, she couldn’t—Lisa befriending Kara while on a job in National City, Mick winning a prestigious award for a semi-biography, destruction of a large portion of the State of Liberty in a domestic terrorism attack and the subsequent united efforts to rebuild it.

He wouldn’t elaborate on those suppositions, merely shaking his head when asked, and Sara let them go even as she couldn’t help wondering.

She had to sleep again, despite keeping her eyes open as long as she could, and woke to find Leonard gone. When she’d scrambled to her feet, shouting his name in alarm, he’d reappeared, even more pale and flickering, and it took Sara a long moment to remember how to breathe deeply again.

“Assassin,” he’d said, very seriously, not long after that, “they’re not going to get here in time. And…I want you to know…”

But Sara put up a hand, refusing to believe in…any number of things. Not yet. “They’re going to get here,” she told. “Any time now. We’re going to fix this.”

Leonard studied her a long time, then nodded, the corner of his mouth hooking up. Sara, that expression said, wasn’t fooling anyone, but he’d listen to her. For now.

“Wish we could play cards,” he drawled, settling down again near her bedroll. “Missed those games.”

Sara settled next to him. “Yeah,” she admitted, “me too. I’ve missed them a lot.” She studied him in return then. “I’ve missed you a lot.”

I’d be perfectly fair, she thought, for him to shoot back that she’d had a funny way of showing it, or something similar. Instead, Leonard simply watched her some more, for all the world like he was trying to memorize her, until Sara looked away, pulling her bag toward her and reaching into it, grabbing the deck of cards.

She held it out to him without comment.

Leonard looked at it a long moment, then raised his gaze to hers, holding it as he reached out.

And for just a moment…a second, barely…his fingers brushed hers as they curled around the deck.

Sara sucked in a startled breath, and Leonard looked down quickly, just in time to see the deck fall through his now mostly transparent hand again and back into Sara’s. His shoulders hunched as he scowled at it, but Sara was glad for the brief reprieve of his gaze—because she was trying very hard to blink tears out of hers.

They were both so very distracted that neither reacted immediately to that most unusual of things in the empty Vanishing Point—a sound.

Sara scrambled to her feet, hope surging again in her heart as she turned toward the exit. “The Waverider!” She took a step or two in that direction, then looked back, the sense of hope faltering as she saw just how transparent Leonard looked at that point.

His expression didn’t echo her own hope, either. It was, if anything, nearly blank. He didn’t think this would work.

Sara opened her mouth to encourage, then closed it. Instead, she turned, watching the exit, able to keep from actually hoping.

As the ship landed and the engine shut down, it grew quiet again. Sara—and Leonard—watched in silence, but it was actually a gratifyingly short period of time before three shadowed figures appeared in the opening.

Sara let out a sigh of relief as she recognized Mick immediately, and she heard Leonard behind her make a quiet noise of…something. Maybe at his old friend’s presence at all, maybe at the cane Mick was using or the evidence of 14 years passed.

Cane or no, Mick advanced faster than the other two figures, crossing the floor toward Sara with an odd look on his face. Once he was about 10 feet away, though, he stopped, and Sara saw his gaze go just past her and to the left…and the stunned expression that appeared.

“Snart,” he said, a bit numbly. “Fuck. You’re really here.” He took another step forward. “Um. Ain’t you?”

Sara turned to see Leonard’s faint image nod, as if he couldn’t manage words—whether due to emotion or the worsening of his condition. She glanced away again, back to the two other newcomers, and breathed again to see Barry Allen, in full Flash garb, and Cisco Ramon, his Vibe goggles dangling from his hand, staring at her.

“Thanks for coming,” she told them, simply, then got to the point. “Cisco…I need you to vibe. _Now_.”

The other man blinked. “Hey, Sara,” he managed. “Um, it’s not that simple. I need…” He frowned as Sara waved an arm impatiently toward the flickering image of Leonard. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

He couldn’t see him. Sara looked at Barry, who was frowning intently at the space Mick was staring at, moving closer as if it would help.

“I kind of see something,” he admitted, looking back at her. “But…Snart? Really?”

Leonard was just visible enough to her that Sara could see him roll his eyes…and then hear, faintly, “Damnit, Scarlet.”

Sara couldn’t help but laugh, though it came out sadder and weaker than she planned. She turned back to Cisco, eyes narrowed, not unhappy at the way her friend stepped back, looking almost scared of her.

“It’s Leonard,” she told him bleakly. “And he’s nearly gone, being dragged into the Time Force…or something like that…over the course of the past 14 years. Vibe. Now. Bring him back.”

Cisco grimaced. “I don’t even know if that exists,” he said apologetically. “And I…Sara, you’re sure you’re not, uh…that this isn’t wishful thinking?” He leaned away as she…and then Mick…glared at him. “All right! All right. I’ll try.”

“You have to, Cisco,” Barry said quietly, looking over to where Leonard nearly wasn’t. “I think you have to. Try, anyway.”

The other man didn’t answer audibly, just slipped his goggles on and stretch out a hand, frowning a little as he concentrated, even as Leonard’s image completely faded for a moment and then flickered back. Sara held her breath.

“OK,” Cisco said, after a moment. “There is something here. You’re right…yeah, it feels more like the Speed Force than anything else…”

Barry stepped up next to him. “Can I help?”

But Cisco shook his head as a vertical blue line appeared there, before him, at the Vanishing Point. “No. I don’t think so. It’s similar, in a way, but it’s not the same. And…whoa.”

The portal opened, an azure haze sweeping throughout the room as if the Oculus wellspring was back, and all four of the people there peered into it in hope, looking for the man they were trying to rescue.

And then, he was there.

Leonard in the Time Force still looked a bit faded, limned with blue light and with that light replacing the whites, irises, and pupils of his eyes. But he was there, very definitely, a storm of light and energy and what appeared to be…images?... whipping around him even as he gazed back at them, trying to take a step forward.

But the Time Force, it seemed, didn’t much want to let him go. It fought back, the strength of the storm intensifying, and he struggled against it, his mouth a grim line as his gaze stayed fixed on Sara.

Barry made a noise that might have been Leonard’s name, and Cisco gulped audibly. They could definitely see him now, Sara thought.

“Wow,” Cisco breathed, hand still stretched out before him. “Um. I can hold this open a little longer, but he needs to come through. Can someone…”

But Sara was already moving, even as Mick and Barry yelled her name.

She kept one foot on the other side of the portal, stepping through with the other and reaching out to Leonard even as he reached out to her. “Len!” she called. “We need to get you out _now_! C’mon!”

He reached for her…but their fingers were still a foot or so apart. Sara set her jaw and leaned forward even more, her hair whipping around her as if the wind from the timestorm was real.

“Snart,” she gritted out, watching him. “I _know_ how stubborn you are. Fight this. Just a little farther. Come home. Come…”

Back to me, she thought.

“It’s fighting me!” she heard Cisco shout. He took another deep breath. “Come on, you stubborn asshole! Snart! I’ll tell Lisa you didn’t try enough! Barry will back me up. We’ll call you names like ‘Captain Clueless and ‘Elsa’ and laugh at you!”

Sara, torn between tears and inappropriate laughter, saw Leonard’s eyes narrow…and then he suddenly lurched forward some more, fighting with renewed fervor. Sara stretched, but still couldn’t quite reach him, and the light and images (was that Amaya in her village? Barry with pure gray hair?) were more intense than ever.

If she stepped just a little closer…if she knew she could just get back…

And then a hand landed on her other wrist, Mick’s grasp sure and steady and very strong, anchoring her as she reached for the man they both cared for.

Leonard, fighting the blue light even as his eyes were still consumed by it, reached back, struggling, and…and…

“It’s closing!” Cisco yelled. “Now, now, _now_!”

And somehow, just then, the storm gave out just enough that Leonard’s arm shot forward the remaining few inches. Sara grabbed his hand and pulled.

She rocked back on her feet as she stumbled backward, and the portal closed, still leaving the after-impressions of blue light on her inner eyelids.

And then arms folded around her before she could fall.

At first, Sara thought it was Mick, pulling her out and away from harm, but then she realized that the frame was slimmer, that she smelled mint and pine, and felt the warm softness of well-worn leather under her cheek. Pulling back just a little, blinking in the absence of the blue light, she looked up…into the stunned light-filled eyes of Leonard Snart.

And then, that bright blue light flickered and died, leaving simply normal eyes, with ice-blue irises, behind.

Mick, behind Sara, swore almost reverently, and Sara heard Cisco whoop in victory, with Barry laughing in relief and glee. But she had eyes only for the man who held her.

“Len,” she started to say. But the word wouldn’t quite come out.

Mick cleared his throat, and Sara felt him step closer, up to her shoulder, her steady lieutenant, her backup, as always.

“Boss,” he said, directing the title to the man who’d held it first, for him, “welcome back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this concludes the first part of the story. Three more chapters, but they'll each be longer and still posted one a day.


	5. I’m Reaching Out

_On a prayer, in a song, I hear your voice, and it keeps me hanging on  
Oh, raining down, against the wind, I'm reaching out,  
'Til we reach the circle's end_

_When you come back to me again_

* * *

“Ginevra? Is Leonard still doing well?” Sara walked down one of the Waverider’s corridors, perfectly well aware that she’d asked the same question, well, not so long ago. But in her defense, she figured, after losing a…a teammate…for 14 years, this deserved her particular concern.

Right?

“Yes, Captain Lance.” Ginevra’s voice was very, very patient. She sounded even more like Gideon. “He’s still sleeping, and he will probably sleep for some time yet. Despite the apparent suspended animation he was in, his body, now that it’s back in regular time, is getting accustomed to things such as sleep, food, and hydration again.”

Sara paused and nodded, knowing that Ginevra could see her after a fashion. When she’d left Leonard in the medbay, he’d been sound asleep and hooked up to a number of lines designed to help that transition. “Good,” she said. “Sorry. I just…”

“It is OK, captain,” the AI said gently. “But know that I will alert you immediately if anything changes.” She paused. “He is all right. You did it.”

Sara smiled in the direction of the ceiling, appreciating the pep talk. But she still felt guilty for how long it’d taken…and expected she always would. “Thank you, Gin.”

Cisco, she knew, was delightedly poking around the Waverider’s bridge, as he did every time he was on the ship, as Ginevra patiently answered his questions as patiently as she’d answered Sara’s. Barry was with him, still a bit chagrined that after everything, he’d had no part to play in the rescue at all.

Mick…Sara was pretty sure she knew where Mick was.

Almost without volition, her footsteps led her to the galley, and she smiled to see Mick sitting there, staring thoughtfully into a mug. A cautious sniff told her what that mug contained.

Hot cocoa. Appropriate.

Mick glanced up at the sound of Sara’s step, then grunted and jerked his head at a saucepan on the stove. Sara hadn’t touched hot cocoa over the past 14 years—not since the day Leonard had made it for her during one of their late-night chats/card games. Today, though, she reached for a mug—the “World’s Best Boss” one Nate had once given her, which she also hadn’t used in years—and ladled up a healthy portion of the warm liquid, breathing in the sweet scents of chocolate and vanilla.

Mick’s eyes were on her as she turned around and took a seat at the counter with him. He didn’t speak at first, though, merely taking another drink and letting her settle.

Then: “No mini marshmallows,” he said, looking down into his mug. “Gonna have to fix that.”

Sara laughed. “Ginevra,” she said again, lifting her voice a little. “Would you replicate some mini marshmallows, please? Captain’s permission.”

“Yes, captain.” The AI’s voice was a touch prim. “You know that the parameters for junk food _have_ been quite…loosened…since the days Gideon was here. But those _things_ are pretty much sugar and…”

“Please, Gin?”

The AI muttered something that sounded like “humans!” but acquiesced, and Sara and Mick shared a smile before Sara took a sip of her cocoa.

“How you doing?” she asked then, looking into the depths of the mug. “This is…” Her voice trailed off a little, and she sighed before taking another drink, looking for the right word.

“Weird,” Mick supplied, leaning back in his chair. “Lots of other things, too. But definitely weird.” He hesitated a moment, then—with the air of a man who doesn’t really want to ask the question—said, “We _sure_ it’s him? I mean…”

Sara couldn’t really blame him. “I talked to him quite a while, before you got there. He…he knows things only the real Leonard would know. And Gideon says his right hand has been reconstructed by the Waverider’s tech.”

Mick absorbed that a moment, then grunted again, a sound rife with relief. “Figured you had reason if you were so sure, but…”

“I get it.”

They drank in silence a few more minutes, both refilling their mugs and Mick offering Sara a shot of rum for her cocoa. And after an indeterminate amount of time, he sighed and met her gaze again.

“Fourteen years,” he said with a shake of his head. “Hell. He’s still _your_ age, Blondie. I feel ancient.”

The words made Sara chuckle, though she privately admitted that it was a little hard to wrap her brain around that herself. Not that the age difference had ever bothered her, or even seemed to be pertinent, but…

Fourteen years.

“From what I could tell, he wasn’t wholly unaware of the passage of time,” she said, looking down into the mug again. “But it didn’t seem anything like the real thing, either. Especially as the years went on.”

Mick made a strangled sound, and Sara looked up. Her friend had a hand wrapped so hard around the mug that his knuckles were white, and his eyes were bleak as he gazed off into the distance.

“I should have stuck with it,” he said, guilt heavy in his tone. “I knew I saw ‘im. _Knew_ it. But then the professor said it wasn’t real, and then that…asshole…showed up…”

“Len called him ‘the crappy copy’,” Sara offered, pleased when that actually got a slight laugh out of Mick.

“Knew that wasn’t really Snart,” he muttered, dumping more rum into his cocoa. “Not the one we knew before. I mean, fuck, the cops just giving us whatever we wanted, in Doomworld? What fun was that? Real one’s gonna be pissed at the very idea.”

For a moment, he paused, and he and Sara both digested the idea that there was, after all this time, a _real one_ here to be pissed by that. And that made Sara smile, so much that she moved to immediately cut off Mick’s descent back into guilt—and hers, likewise.

This was a goddamned miracle. They should appreciate it like one.

“Mick,” she told him, going a little into “captain voice,” “you didn’t know.” She raised her voice a little as he shook his head. “You _couldn’t_ know. And he’s back now. Does it make any sense to waste time? _Take the victory_.”

Mick opened his mouth to argue. Sara eyed him, and he stopped, making an annoyed noise but showing that he had indeed learned some sort of caution and common sense over the past 13 years or so.

“You’re right, Boss,” he said, finally, lifting his mug in a toast. “To miracles.”

Sara clinked his mug in return.

* * *

Ginevra’s assurances aside, Sara first learned that Leonard was awake—and up and around—when a rather diffident knock on her door woke her from sleep hours later, during the middle of the night, ship’s time.

Sara was still blinking, sitting up and getting her bearings, when Ginevra’s apologetic voice echoed in her quarters.

“I’m sorry, Captain Lance,” she said, sounding fairly breathless for an entity without actual lungs. “Mr. Snart woke up and wandered off while I was analyzing some of his dreams from his time asleep. I gave him the medical all-clear, but I didn’t expect him to…”

Sara couldn’t help a grin even as she tried to shake out the cobwebs a little more. “It’s OK, Gin,” she told the AI. “Leonard…well, you’ll learn. He’s stubborn.”

Ginevra sniffed—again, fairly well for an entity without nasal passages. “You’re all stubborn,” she shot back. “Still. Captain Lance, Mr. Snart is healthy and rested and shows no sign of any harm from his time in what you call ‘the Time Force.’ His cells are aging again, but at the normal rate.” She sniffed again. “And he is your problem now.”

Sara shook her head, smiling. “Got it. Would you…ah, let him in?”

The door slid open without comment—though Sara would swear that she heard one more faint “sniff.”

Leonard stood there, peering in tentatively, though his expression smoothed a bit as he saw Sara. She ran a hand through tangled hair, suddenly all too aware that she was tousled, makeup-free, and wearing sleep shorts and an old T-shirt.

But he didn’t seem to mind. Cautiously, at her nod, he sidled into the room, letting the door close behind him. Sara knotted her hair into a messy bundle at her neck, watching him, feeling rather awkward in a way she hadn’t in a long time.

“Hey,” she said, trying for a casual tone. “Ginevra said you got a clean bill of health. How do you feel?”

Leonard moved his head to the side in an uncertain sort of gesture, moving slowly toward her. He looked up, gaze flicking about the room as he studied it, and Sara realized that of course he’d never seen the captain’s quarters—well, not unless he’d broken in to steal something from Rip, which wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. But he’d never been in _her_ quarters when they were the captain’s quarters.

“OK,” he said, managing to drawl the single word as he lowered his gaze to hers again. “It’s kind of…hmm…surreal. Like it was a dream.” That two-shouldered, abrupt shrug again. “But here I am. Even though a lot of shit’s changed.”

From the words, the tone might have been bitter—but it really wasn’t. Rather, it was matter of fact, maybe even a touch melancholy, and Sara got to her feet in response, wondering what to say.

“It has,” she told him quietly. “But…you’re back now, safe. That’s what matters.”

“Hmmm,” Leonard said again, but it was more thoughtful than anything else. He moved farther into the room, gaze darting around again before returning to Sara’s.

“Nice digs,” he told her, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. “Betting you’re a lot better captain than Rip was.” He held up a hand, making that abrupt sideways motion of his head again as Sara bristled a little. “Not to, ah, speak ill of the dead.”

Sara glared at him briefly, then sighed and subsided. “He didn’t really want to be a captain,” she mused quietly, looking around. “He just wanted to save his family. I, at least, had more of a choice.”

“True.”

They watched each other a moment longer when Leonard finally seemed to register just how late it was, and that Sara had been sleeping. “Sorry,” he said abruptly, pulling his hands out of his pockets. “I didn’t realize. I can…”

“No,” Sara interrupted him. “It’s fine.” She hesitated a moment, then reached over and picked up a very familiar object from her bedside table. Then she held it up for him to see—the deck of cards, edges worn somewhat smooth in places, though barely used in 14 years. “Want a game?”

Leonard gave her the lopsided smile. “Thought you’d never ask, Assassin.”

* * *

They fell back into hands of gin nearly like the games had never stopped, cards spread on the hurriedly smoothed covers of Sara’s bed, Leonard fastidiously pulling his boots off so he could sprawl there opposite her, eyes direct, looking up at her in the way he had so many times in the past.

Sara was pretty sure he started cheating again nearly immediately, but she almost didn’t care. They played hand after hand, slipping into conversation easily, just like before, and she lost track of time very quickly. Again.

During one hand, watching her cards and not his face, she told him about Ava—about their relationship, how it started, how it ended—and how Sara still felt guilty about how relieved she’d been when it did.

Leonard, also quietly and with his eyes on his cards, told her about his more coherent times in the Time Force, about images of past and present revolving around him. He didn’t mention the future, but Sara thought about his questions about things she hadn’t yet known about, and she wondered.

He’d known about her sister and her father—and he’d known about some of the changes to the multiverse, for better or for worse. Sara drew in a rough breath at that, losses and victories still stinging, and Leonard stopped speaking, as if realizing that distant images to him were still raw wounds to her.

But it wasn’t those losses Sara was necessarily struggling with. She’d come to terms with them. And she tried to tell him that, stumbling a little over the words despite her reassurances to Mick, grappling with the idea that he’d been out there all along and she hadn’t even _tried_ …

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at her cards too. “I’m so _sorry_. I didn’t realize…I left you at the Vanishing Point, because I had to, and then you were gone, and it hurt. It hurt a lot. And Laurel was gone too, and I didn’t want to dwell, I didn’t even want to _think_ , and…”

“Hey.”

Sara glanced up at the depth of, well, something, in his voice. Leonard was closer than he’d been before, close enough to reach out and…and she leaned toward him unconsciously, accepting the absolution his gaze offered.

“I didn’t even know where I was,” he said roughly, sweeping up their cards and moving them aside. “Even if I’d gotten through to you, or Mick, or anyone else, there’s no telling what would have happened. Maybe…maybe it just needed to happen now.” For a moment, Sara thought she saw blue light flicker in his eyes. “Maybe that was just what had to be. Maybe _now_ is the right time.”

Sara studied him, suddenly cognizant that they were mere inches from each other, and that Leonard’s gaze, though cautious as she remembered, was also direct. Determined.

Well, then.

“Are you still a hell of a thief?” she said quietly, changing the subject—but not quite—tacitly accepting his words and moving a little closer, close enough to be within easy arms’ reach if he wanted, knowing that she very much… _wanted_.

This Leonard may have been a little more serious, a little more introspective…but his smirk and the glint in his eyes were very much the same as she remembered.

“You better believe it,” he murmured back, as Sara slid into his arms and raised her mouth to his. And then, finally, he stole the kiss she’d challenged him with all those years ago.

Or, maybe, Sara thought, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning in, they simply stole it from each other.


	6. My Yesterdays in Front of Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm stuck in the house in a white-out right now, so I figured I'd drop these last two chapters now, in case anyone's in similar circumstances and needs something to read. :) Enjoy! 
> 
> Some angst enters. Sara definitely has "people leaving" issues. (Have I mentioned that I dislike the whole "revolving door" concept for the Waverider myself? Well, I do.)
> 
> Continued thanks to Pir8grl for the beta.

_And again I see_

_My yesterdays in front of me_

_Unfolding like a mystery,  
You’re changing all that is and used to be_

* * *

Leonard Snart wasn’t used to waking in other people’s beds. Especially not when those other people weren’t there.

And, well, especially not naked. He’d never once been comfortable enough to do that. Not with Alexa. Not even with Daniel.

He didn’t open his eyes at first, though caution, memory, and then understanding filtered in, making tense muscles relax and allowing him to sigh…and even smile. Not his imagination. For the first time in…well, 14 years, it seemed…not his imagination.

He vaguely remembered Sara leaving a while ago, kissing him briefly and murmuring her goodbye…and laughingly evading his attempts to pull her back into bed. He’d apparently fallen back asleep after that, unexpectedly but perhaps realistically, given that he hadn’t had normal human sleep in years. And yet…

He’d slept.

Carefully, he stretched, feeling muscles—largely unused for years but somehow still not atrophied—respond. The new AI…Ginevra…had warned him that he might have an issue with disassociation of a sort, being back in a physical body after so long. She’d recommended physical activity to help work against the possibility.

(Although it was the same physical body and hadn’t aged so much as a moment from the time the Oculus exploded. He was trying not to overthink that.)

Now, however, some of those muscles had a rather pleasant burn going on, one that made him smirk a bit as he considered how he’d acquired it. Seriously, if he was going to pick a physical activity, that had been an effective one. Especially given with whom he’d engaged in said activity.

Ginevra had probably had something more like a treadmill or weights in mind. Leonard snorted to himself as he sat up and glanced around the room. The captain’s quarters were rather nicer—and bigger— than the crew quarters, he thought. Ol’ Rip had been holding out.

And Rip Hunter had been dead for years. He’d probably be caught up by abrupt realizations like that for a while.

Fourteen years.

Sara had apparently gathered the clothing they’d scattered about earlier, and his clothes were folded neatly on a cardboard box sitting on a chair. When Leonard rose to investigate, somewhat self-consciously wrapping a sheet around his torso (which he recognized as somewhat ridiculous even as he did it anyway), he noted the letters “LS” scrawled on the side of the box in Mick’s familiar scrawl and blinked as he realized what it must be.

Mick must have packed his things away after…after the Oculus. The thought sent an odd pang through him, and he stared at the box a moment longer before carefully removing the clothing from it and folding the top back.

It seemed to be mostly clothes—which considering that he’d effectively been wearing the same damned thing for 14 years, sounded damn good—but there were a few other things too. A photo of Lisa he’d had in the desk, tucked away self-consciously at the sign of sentiment. A few books. One of Sara’s knives he’d actually managed to get away with stealing. Even a few bits and pieces he’d lifted here and there throughout the Waverider’s journeys, although Mick definitely could have made some money off them at some point.

The case with his cold gun was nowhere in evidence. Honestly, he had a good idea what had happened to the weapon, thanks to the Oculus images, but he’d let Mick (and especially Raymond) twist in the wind a little bit over that before he admitted the knowledge.

The thought made him smirk as he gathered some jeans and a sweater from the box, refolding the top closed. Surely he was enough of a hero now that Cisco Ramon could be persuaded to make him a new gun. Plus, he could leverage Ramon’s own words about Lisa from the Vanishing Point against him.

The thought, though, briefly chased away his good mood. Lisa had thought he was dead for 14 years. Nearly a third of her life, now. He’d missed it. And while Sara had told him that his sister was well, even happy and successful, it still stung.

Well. All he could do now was move forward.

* * *

At some point over the years, Sara had had a bathroom, complete with shower, added to the captain’s quarters, and Leonard availed himself of it without a qualm, smiling a little as he found a new toothbrush waiting for him on the sink.

After his first shower in 14 years—he was going to be thinking that sort of thing a lot, it seemed—he dressed quickly in the old-new things, sitting on the bed again to lace his boots before rising. He briefly thought about asking Ginevra to tell him where Sara was, but decided against it for reasons he wasn’t completely sure of.

He hadn’t seen Mick last night when he’d first left the medbay. They had rather a lot to catch up on. And with any luck, he’d have the chance to address what was…might be? Could be?...going on between Sara and himself on his own terms.

Nodding to himself, Leonard stepped up to the door, which promptly slid open…revealing Mick Rory himself, standing in the hall opposite the doorway, leaning back against the wall and wearing a smirk that contained enough smug satisfaction to fill the Waverider.

Leonard stopped in his tracks, the door sliding shut behind him. “Ah,” he said, wisely, for once at a complete loss for words.

Mick straightened from his slouch, and while his smirk didn’t fade one bit, he apparently took some pity on his old friend’s mental state. “Lunch?” he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the galley and picking up his cane.

“Sure.” Leonard lifted an eyebrow. “It’s that late?”

“Ship’s time, it’s past noon.” Mick apparently couldn’t resist. “So, what were _you_ up to, to be so tired after that long nap in medbay?”

His tone suggested he had a pretty good idea. Leonard didn’t dignify the words with a response.

The galley had changed a bit in layout and, it seemed, technology. Mick still knew his way around perfectly well, though, crossing the space to pull something out of what must be a refrigerator of sorts, turning to sit it on the counter and reaching for a bowl.

“Not gonna make you eat replicator food for your first meal back,” he grunted, reaching for a skillet next. “And Blondie’s doing captain shit right now, with Allen and Ramon bugging her. Omelet OK?”

Leonard, still at something of a loss for words, nodded. Mick continued without comment for the moment, putting the skillet on the stove and opening the earlier package to reveal perfectly ordinary eggs.

Mick seemed content to cook in silence, and Leonard was content to sit and watch him. He hadn’t really had a good look last night, but 14 years sat relatively lightly on his friend’s face, although it showed in other places, like movement. Mick still kept his head shaven, so there was no sign of increased gray, and while there were a few new lines around his eyes, he still seemed very much the man Leonard remembered.

Fourteen years.

Two omelets redolent of cheese, garlic, ham, and a few other semi-familiar smells later, Mick put two plates down on the counter, one in front of Leonard, one in front of himself, carefully levering himself down to sit and leaning his cane nearby.

“Eat,” he said, frowning at Leonard.

Leonard, with alacrity, ate. Mick watched as if to make sure he was actually going to continue, then grunted and took a bite of his own meal.

They ate in silence a while before he spoke again, poking at a bit of ham with a fork and keeping his eyes on the plate. “Blondie said she told you a bit about…well. All the time you missed.”

He hadn’t _entirely_ missed it. But Leonard chose not to bring that up yet, keeping his eyes on Mick, who continued.

“But she said she didn’t tell you everything.” Mick tapped his fork against the plate, a nervous tell if Leonard had ever seen one. “So. Um. I have a kid…”

* * *

It was a very thoughtful Leonard Snart indeed who slowly walked the Waverider halls about an hour later, considering everything Mick had told him and all that had changed.

Mick Rory was a father. A grandfather. A best-selling author. A reasonably upstanding member of society. And he was _happy_. It was all enough to make his oldest friend quite thoughtful indeed.

Leonard had a lot of regrets, but what he’d done that day at the Vanishing Point wasn’t one of them. Especially not seeing this Mick, older, but comfortable as himself in a way that belied all the shit he’d been through when he was younger. And, hell, there were two people alive today who wouldn’t even be alive if Leonard hadn’t made the choice he did.

It was all a bit…humbling.

The bridge, when he stepped out on it, was a good bit different too. But it was familiar enough that memory surged as he looked around, thinking of all the conversations, the jumps, the scoldings by Rip…

“Snart!”

And then the memories were abruptly swept away as Barry Allen, older but still so very _Barry_ , grabbed him in a bear hug, nearly knocking him off his feet and coming perilously close to Leonard’s hand around his throat. As it was, he tolerated the embrace, scowling at the other man as Allen released him after a moment, backing away a bit nervously even as he continued to grin.

“Sorry,” the speedster said sheepishly. “I forget for a moment. Um, Leo likes hugs.”

Leonard’s eyes narrowed a bit more. “ _Not_ Leo, Allen.” He folded his arms. “The original is still superior.”

Allen’s grin didn’t flag at all. Leonard must be losing his touch. Still, Ramon, who was approaching them, did still look downright intimidated, so he was still doing something right.

“Snart,” Ramon said, holding his hands out before him like he figured he was going to have to defend himself. “Uh, what I said at the Vanishing Point. You know I was just…trying to get the job done, right?”

Leonard did. But that didn’t mean he was going to let Ramon off the hook. He fixed the younger man with his best, most Captain Cold glare, watching him pale and stop in his tracks. Satisfying.

He didn’t waste breath on threats, just scowled intensely for a few moments, getting the point across before he jerked his head back toward Allen.

“Hear congratulations are in order, kid,” he drawled. “Twins? Mazel tov.”

The speedster brightened. “Oh! Thank you.” He beamed at Leonard. “Do you want to see pictures? I have pictures…a lot of pictures…”

Leonard, a bit nonplussed, was nevertheless amused to hear Ramon’s quiet groan at the other man’s glee at fatherhood. And both of them were saved from having to answer by a quiet ripple of laughter from nearby, a sound that had him turning abruptly to see Sara Lance, learning on the door to the captain’s…her office, smiling at him.

He took a step forward involuntarily, realizing that he was smiling back. And fully aware that, yes, his earlier statement that mid-40s Sara Lance was more beautiful than ever was undeniably true.

“Hey,” he said. (Smooth, Snart.)

“Hey, yourself,” she said back, taking a step toward him. “You still doing OK?”

“Peachy.”

“Good.”

Behind him, Leonard could hear Allen say something low and incredulous to Ramon, and Ramon’s choking noises in response. He ignored them, taking another step toward Sara.

“Mick said you were doing ‘important captain shit,’” he said, looking up at her through his eyelashes. “Everything all right?”

“Yep. Just logging the trip to the Vanishing Point. It’s a little different each time, in a variety of ways, so I keep careful records.” Her smile grew a little as she glanced over his shoulder, apparently at Allen and Ramon. “Did Mick find you OK?”

Ha. Leonard smirked back. “Yep,” he echoed, having a pretty good idea what she was thinking. “No worries.”

Sara’s smirk grew even more. “Good.” Her gaze lifted to where he was pretty sure Allen and Ramon were staring at them from behind him. And she winked. Leonard struggled to keep a straight face at that, imagining the two heroes’ faces.

“So,” he asked after he’d restrained a chuckle, “how long do you think it will take to get home?”

Sara’s gaze went back to him at that—and for some reason, for a moment, she looked a bit…unsettled. But the moment passed quickly, so quickly that he wasn’t positive he’d even seen the expression, and she nodded, perfectly calm.

“Tomorrow, by ship’s time,” she told him. “Or on Central City time, November 11, 2030.”

Leonard digested that for a long moment as Cisco, stepping up beside him, held up a hand like he was asking to ask a question. “Um, Sara…Captain Lance…”

Sara rolled her eyes at him but motioned for him to continue.

“Why can’t you take him…” He jerked his thumb at Leonard, who rolled his own eyes. “…right back to not so long after…um…he ‘died?’” He made air quotes at the word. “I mean, we’re on a time machine here.”

“Time ship,” Sara corrected absently. She glanced at Leonard, who shrugged. He’d already considered this a good bit and figured he got it, but he was interested to hear what she’d have to say.

“I could try,” she admitted, giving Leonard a somewhat apologetic look. “But…I rather doubt the timestream would let me. And even if it would, I wouldn’t.” She took a deep breath. “Fourteen years…a lot of things happened differently because of Leonard’s absence. And those things had echoes. Would Mick have had a daughter if he’d been here? There are two lives now riding on that question, maybe more in the future. And…well, who knows what other echoes there could be?”

Leonard nodded to her, trying to show that he understood, but her gaze slipped sideways, as if she didn’t want to look him in the eyes. Beside him, Barry, who’d personally changed the timeline a bit too often himself, made a slightly embarrassed noise. Ramon sighed.

“Good point, but that’s tough, man.” He reached out as if to clap Leonard on the back but froze as the other man fixed him with a glare. Leonard held the expression just long enough to make his point, then glanced back at Sara.

But she was gone, back into her office, and the moment was, too.

* * *

Sara wasn’t proud of herself, but she avoided Leonard for much of the rest of the day.

_“…how long do you think it will take to get_ home _?”_

Home. The Waverider wasn’t home to him, not like it was home to her. And why should it be? He’d been on it for only about five months, an experience that had included the betrayal of his best friend, serious injury, and some rather ham-handed moves by Rip, culminating in getting apparently blown up. Of course he wouldn’t want to stay on the Waverider.

Sara was going to be alone again.

She wasn’t going to leave the Waverider. Not even for a second chance. It was her life, her calling, and she wouldn’t give that up for a relationship. She hadn’t for Ava. She couldn’t for Leonard. Not even if he asked—which she supposed he might. At least there was that. Ava hadn’t asked; she had merely assumed.

Eventually, tired of hiding and weary of the cycling of her own thoughts, Sara left and wandered to the galley, arriving just in time to see Mick and Leonard bantering while Mick was pulling a package of steaks out of the fridge, Cisco and Barry chiming in when they could. They all greeted her with pleasure, and although Sara could see a thoughtfulness in Leonard’s eyes as he looked at her, he didn’t ask her where she’d been.

Which was just fine with her.

It was nice, to eat surrounded by teammates of a sort again, banter and bullshit and laughter around her. Leonard didn’t speak as much as the others, except for the odd timely stinger, but he sat next to Sara, his knee occasionally brushing hers under the table, and the casual contact said more than anything else about how some things had changed.

She caught Mick studying them a time or two, an interesting but not unhappy expression on his face, but he ultimately kept his mouth shut, and Sara was good with that too.

With dinner done, Mick promptly bullied Barry and Cisco into doing the dishes, giving Sara and Leonard a notable _look_ as he supervised. Sara took the hint and beat a hasty retreat, Leonard following her, but then paused abruptly once outside, uncertain what to do.

Leonard cleared his throat behind her. “So, any decent movies made in the last 14 years?” he asked diffidently when she glanced at him. “Wouldn’t mind starting to fill in some gaps.”

It was a good suggestion, and one that easily could be perfectly innocent if they wanted. Sara gave him a smile, trying to think back to all those years ago.

“Any number of Star Wars movies, for one thing,” she said after a moment, knowing Leonard’s propensity for the genre, no matter how much he’d teased Ray for being a geek. “How about _Rogue One_? That was the same year…”

Her voice trailed off, the words “…you died” not worth uttering. Fortunately, Leonard merely nodded, accepting the choice.

“Rec room?” he asked. Giving her an out, again, if she didn’t want to go to her quarters.

This time, she took him up on it.

* * *

They were uninterrupted for _Rogue One_ , which Leonard deemed somewhat depressing but excellent, before Sara mentioned watching either the latter two movies of the third movie trilogy or binging _The Mandalorian_ , a show of which he knew nothing. He decided on the latter due to her recommendation, but they were interrupted nearly immediately by Barry, Cisco, and Mick, who gave Sara an apologetic look as the other two promptly made themselves welcome and started squabbling happily about which of the show’s six seasons were the best and who had to go back to the galley to get popcorn.

Leonard moved over toward Sara on the couch to give Mick room to sit down, and though Sara initially hesitated due to the company, by the end of the first episode, she was leaning just slightly into Leonard’s side. He’d draped his arm over the back of the couch, perilously close to being around her shoulders, and if any of the others was tempted to point this out, they chose discretion as the better part of valor.

They made it through half the first season before the late hour by ship’s time got to the others, and Barry and Cisco took their leave, yawning, heading out to the rooms Sara had assigned them. Mick followed soon after, giving them both another pointed look that Sara couldn’t quite read, and then they were alone. Again.

Sara held up the remote and gave Leonard an inquiring look, but he shook his head and she turned the TV off—regretting it nearly immediately as silence fell.

It was Leonard who spoke up first. “Where do you want me to stay?” he asked quietly, looking straight ahead and not toward her. “I understand my…old room…is open. Or…elsewhere.”

It was tactfully done, really, Sara thought. If she wanted to, she could simply direct him to the room he’d had so long ago. And if she wanted to take his latter option in a manner that didn’t translate to “with you,” she could presume that he simply meant another room.

She should send him to his old room or another one. Start the process of removing herself from the hopes she’d had after his rescue. But…she didn’t want to.

Surely, she deserved this. One more night. Even if they did nothing more than stay together.

“All your stuff’s still back in my quarters,” she said casually, stretching and then meeting his eyes. “Doesn’t seem worth it to move things. You good with that?”

A slow smile spread over Leonard’s face. “I am.”

And then, right there in one of the public areas of the Waverider, he leaned over and kissed her, bringing a hand up to cup her jaw as Sara leaned in too, deepening the kiss despite her qualms.

No. She wanted this. _This_ might be all she’d get, but she definitely wanted this.

Things started to get distinctly heated rather quickly, with neither of them really wanting to stop despite the all-too accessible setting. But Sara came back to herself briefly after Leonard found a particularly sensitive spot on her neck, her loud gasp nearly startling her, and decided belatedly that things probably shouldn’t progress any further there.

“We should move,” she said a bit breathlessly, putting a hand up against his chest, leaning her forehead against his. “I mean, the bed is far more comfortable. And the chance of random speedsters interrupting…far less.”

Leonard muttered under his breath for a moment—and then smirked at her. That was all the warning Sara had before he abruptly stood up, nearly spilling her onto the floor but making up for it by promptly scooping her smaller frame up into his arms, holding her bridal style as he turned for the door.

“Oof.”

“Oof?” Sara mock-glared at him, looping her arms around his neck as he carried her out of the rec room, heading toward her quarters. “Seriously? Oof?”

Leonard didn’t dignify it with an answer, instead picking up his pace a little. “I’m liking the captain’s quarters,” he drawled. “Bigger bed, instead of one of those damned ledges in the other rooms. Could get used to that.”

Did he mean…? Sara studied his face a long moment, wondering. She should ask…

But she didn’t. She didn’t want to ruin this one more chance.

The door to the captain’s quarters opened for them without pause. Sara spared a sympathetic thought for poor Ginevra’s sensibilities before Leonard put her gently down on the bed and she reached up and pulled him down with her.

Ginevra, like Gideon before her, would learn what to ignore.


	7. ‘Til We Reach the Circle’s End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Sara. 
> 
> But I do like my happy endings...
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed reading this one! I really enjoyed writing it.

_On a prayer, in a song, I hear your voice, and it keeps me hanging on  
Oh, raining down, against the wind, I'm reaching out,  
'Til we reach the circle's end_

_When you come back to me again_

_When you come back to me…again_

* * *

It was earlier afternoon in Central City when the Waverider emerged into the skies overhead, Sara and Ginevra bringing the cloaked ship down and landing it neatly in the very same empty lot that Rip had used years before.

Leonard, abruptly and uncharacteristically nervous, stared at his rather meager belongings for a while before deciding not to take more than a satchel of items at this time. Ginevra replicated him one without comment, as well as a few things for it. By soon after they’d landed, he joined the others at the Waverider’s hatch, watching as it opened and showed him Central City for the first time in 14 years.

Sara seemed unhappy, somehow, although they’d spent a _very_ satisfying night together and slept well until the morning, waking entangled to, well, have a very satisfying morning. Leonard couldn’t help a touch of unease as he saw the sadness in her eyes as she gazed out the hatch with him, but he had no idea why and wasn’t sure how to bring it up. And so he didn’t, walking slowly out of the ship at her side as Allen and Ramon led the way, Mick grumbling along behind them.

He’d figured that he’d go to Mick’s place first, try to figure out how to contact Lisa, but Allen had other ideas, turning and beaming at them all as the hatch closed and the ship shimmered into nothingness behind them.

“OK, everyone to STAR Labs,” he announced, grinning. “I contacted them as soon as we, ah, rescued you, Snart…”

“Allen, you had nothing…”

But Barry continued, unfazed. “…and I’ve got transportation.” He waved proudly at a vehicle parked nearby. “Enough room for all!”

Leonard blinked at it and then looked back at his old nemesis. Once. Then again.

“You’re a speedster,” he said, layering disbelief into his tone. “And you have…a minivan?”

Ramon snickered and Mick guffawed, but Allen looked unrepentant, if a little disappointed by the reaction.

“Well,” he said, fidgeting a little. “I mean, Iris isn’t a speedster…and the twins are, but they’re still kids. We needed family transportation, you know?”

“And the cops ain’t gonna harass a dad buying diapers in the middle of the night…not if he’s got a minivan,” Mick muttered, a non sequitur to everyone other than Leonard, who cleared his throat at the reference before choosing to ignore it.

Barry blinked but then shrugged it off, motioning to the vehicle again. “Everyone in!”

It seemed easier to just do it.

* * *

They had to move a pair of booster seats around to get everyone in, and both Leonard and Mick made snarky comments all the way to STAR Labs, they nevertheless got there. Sara stretched as she got out of the van, cracking her spine and studying the familiar building as Leonard joined her, his quiet presence already familiar again after so long.

“What do you think Allen’s up to?” he asked quietly, his breath in her ear sending shivers down her spine. “I bet we could get outta here. Find someplace…lay low…”

What was really on his mind was all too clear. Sara, who noted that while he hadn’t brought all his belongings, he had brought a rather large satchel, tried not to be encouraged or discouraged by it.

“Bite the bullet now,” she advised him, smiling despite herself. “It’s going to happen sooner or later. Better get it done with.”

He lifted a skeptical eyebrow, but when Sara didn’t respond, simply shrugged philosophically and joined her in following the others toward the building.

Barry unlocked the door and entered first, motioning Leonard to follow him, a grin so wide on his face that even someone far less skeptical would have been suspicious. Leonard eyed him but then glanced at Sara and sighed, following the speedster inside.

Where he was nearly immediately nearly flattened by a very enthusiastic former teammate as Barry and Cisco laughed and even Mick grunted in amusement.

“You’re alive!” Ray Palmer released Leonard and stepped back, beaming like the sun as he studied the thief. “Snart, this is so amazing! And you don’t look a day older…that’s incredible. I mean, I’m going gray now, but that might be the kids rather than the years…haha…oh! I have two kids now. And I’m married. Do you want to see pictures?”

Sara hid a smile behind her hand as Leonard blinked, rather stunned despite himself at the flow of words from the man he’d called “Boy Scout,” glancing at her before directly his gaze back at Ray, apparently something at a loss for words.

“Raymond,” he drawled, drawing himself up and attempting to regain equilibrium, “I see you haven’t changed at all. Refreshing in a rather…obnoxious…way.”

“But…”

They were, probably fortunately for Ray, interrupted by another pleased “Snart!” Sara grinned openly as she watched Jax, still her honorary little brother, approached her long-missing teammate, wiser than Ray in that he waited for Leonard’s nodded acquiescence before he went in for a hug.

“Man, it’s good to see you,” he said fervently, grinning at Leonard. “Couldn’t believe it when Barry called ahead and told us. It didn’t seem possible, after all this time.”

Leonard darted a glare at the unrepentant Barry Allen before looking back at Jax, himself now older than Sara had been when she’d first gone on the Waverider. He’d always had a soft spot for Jax, she remembered, and the fondness in his eyes said he still did.

“Looking good, kid,” he said, clearing his throat. “Life treating you OK?”

“Yup. Went to college after all when I left the Waverider…got an engineering degree now. And I met my wife at school. We have a daughter. Martina.” His smile flagged just a little. “You heard about Stein, right?”

“I did.” After a brief hesitation, Leonard reached out and clasped Jax’s shoulder. “He’d be proud of you.”

It was, Sara thought, the perfect thing to say.

And then other members of Team Flash entered, Caitlin and Harry and Joe West, and Iris with the tornado twins, who instantly began causing chaos, and Nora with the Palmer kids, and then Kendra, whom Sara hadn’t seen in a few years….and suddenly, it was a party.

A homecoming.

* * *

Sara had hoped to find a chance to ask Leonard about what his plans were—if he might come back to the Waverider, if only temporarily—but the merry chaos around them made it difficult to have a private conservation at all. Still, she kept an eye on him and tried to stay nearby.

Leonard looked a bit shell-shocked by the welcome, to be honest, though Sara got the impression he was taking it far better than the old Leonard would have. At the very least, she didn’t hear him threaten anyone…not seriously, anyway…and she even saw him smile a few times. Once, notably, when Lita showed up with little Alistair, and he finally got to meet what Mick called his honorary goddaughter.

But after a while, Sara got the impression that he might be looking for an escape from the hubbub around them, a certain tenseness in his shoulders and in his gaze. She took one more sip from her soda and set it down on a desk, ready to walk across the room and check on him. It seemed a perfect time for them both to vanish.

It was a good plan.

But then a cry from someone who’d just entered STAR Labs lifted, rising above all the others, and Leonard spun as he heard it, eyes widening as a figure launched itself toward him.

“Lenny!”

Lisa Snart, now nearly as old as her brother when he’d “died,” threw her arms around him in a gesture of such unbridled happiness that it took Sara’s breath away. She glanced to where Cisco Ramon was grinning to himself and nodded to him. He must have managed to contact Lisa before they’d even arrived back in Central City.

Sara knew the Snart siblings had their own issues, years of unhappy childhoods and hard choices warring against the bonds they’d built as the two of them went up against the world, but none of those were in evidence now. Leonard, after another stunned moment, put his arms around his sister too, and they simply hugged each other, tight, Lisa weeping happy tears into his shoulder as he closed his eyes in relief.

Sara doubted there was a truly dry eye in the house. She knew she had to brush a few away, thinking of Laurel and too much wasted time.

And it seemed Leonard wasn’t going anywhere, especially for the moment.

* * *

Lisa was now nearly as old as Leonard had been when he’d gone on the Waverider, expecting to be back within the month. And she looked…well, Leonard thought, listening to his little sister enthusiastically describe what she’d been up over the past 14 years…she looked fantastic. She looked _happy_.

First Mick and now Lisa. He wondered again, briefly, what she would have been like if he hadn’t chosen to stay at the Oculus. What would his sister’s decisions have been like then? Would she have chosen differently than the series of choices that led her to now, the owner of a successful bounty-hunting business and a life spent traveling but not hiding?

He couldn’t help but wonder.

“So, Shawna’s out of the biz for now,” Lisa said, picking up her drink from where she’d placed it to better describe a particularly big score for her business. “Which is really unexpectedly perfect, I guess.” She leaned over, grinning at him in that way she had now, a pleased expression without the edge it used to have. “So, what about it, ‘big’ brother?”

Leonard blinked. Apparently, he’d missed something. “What about what?”

They’d found their way to a side room in STAR Labs, the better to have a conversation where they could actually hear each other, and the others had let them go. Sara had given him a little wave and a smile of understanding, but Leonard had seen another undercurrent of sadness in it again, and he’d been trying to puzzle it out.

Lisa rolled her eyes at him. “Are you going to join the business?” She nudged him, smiling. “I mean, you’re not going back to, well, the other ‘family business,’ right, hero?”

He mock-glared at her for the use of _that word_ , but Lisa laughed again, unrepentant. She’d laughed more today—laughter without the old undercurrent of sarcasm—then he thought he’d ever heard from her before. It was…nice.

“You’d be perfect,” she told him earnestly. “We work together well, and you know how to plan better than anyone else I’ve ever known. Tell me you will, Lenny.”

But Leonard was distracted, briefly, by a sound near the doorway, turning his head to see if someone else was joining them—and if it was the someone else he’d been hoping for.

But then it was gone, and he shook his head, chalking it up to his imagination.

“Lisa,” he said carefully, meeting his sister’s eyes. “I appreciate that. More than I can ever say. But…I think I have other plans.”

* * *

There was no way Leonard would turn that down.

Sara threaded her way through the others in STAR Labs, smiling when spoken to and trying not to look like her own hopes had just been finally, thoroughly dashed. She’d known before on the Waverider, really, but she’d let herself believe that maybe Leonard would want to come back on the ship after all, to throw his hat in with the Legends (such as they were) and stay.

But this. His sister, the person he’d cared about, protected, since they were children, asking him to join her in her business, one that seemed well suited to the two of them, here in the city he’d deemed “his” for as long as she’d known him…he wouldn’t turn that down.

And Sara wouldn’t ask him to.

She left the building without anyone being the wiser, taking a few deep breaths of the bracing air before stuffing her hands in her pockets and starting to walk back to the Waverider alone.

There were new Legends to recruit, after all.

* * *

“I can’t find Sara.”

Leonard had finally emerged from his talk with Lisa—one that had actually gone better than he’d feared, after telling her he had other plans— to be met by an unknown but somehow familiar redhead, who’d smiled at him and then spoken to him in Gideon’s voice. That had been intriguing enough to be truly distracting for a good bit of time. Turned out he rather liked humanoid Gideon, who had a snarky sense of humor and a certain sense of disrespect for authority.

And then he’d seen his sister and Cisco Ramon kissing in a corner—and big brother intimidation had absolutely needed to come into play there, for reasons. Lisa had laughed at him, and Ramon had earnestly pled the best of intentions, and frankly, Leonard had walked away feeling actually sort of—good—about that relationship. Lisa could do worse, though he’d never, ever tell Ramon that.

But when he’d finally been able to look for Sara again, a while after midnight and after the impromptu party had begun to break up, he’d had no luck at all. In fact, it seemed no one had seen her for quite a while, and Leonard’s sense of something going somehow wrong was prickling his senses inexorably.

Mick, however, had seemed thoroughly unconcerned.

“She probably didn’t want to interrupt you and Lis and went back to the Waverider,” his old friend had said, levering himself out of a chair with his cane. “She doesn’t like leaving the ship alone too long.” Mick studied Leonard with those perceptive eyes, and for the first time, Leonard fidgeted a little, feeling the span of the 16 years now between them. It was, really, a touch unnerving.

“C’mon,” Mick said finally. “You can crash on my couch. Go chase Blondie tomorrow.”

“I’m not _chasing_ …”

“You can tell yourself that, Snart.”

* * *

The couch at Mick’s apartment was comfortable enough—the whole apartment was, really, and it wasn’t a stretch to call it the homiest place Leonard had ever known Mick to live. Still, Leonard didn’t sleep well at all, going so far as to get up at 4 a.m. with a half-formed plan of going to find the Waverider—before he realized that the city might have changed a lot in 14 years, and perhaps it wasn’t best for a convicted felon (even with a wiped record) to go wander the streets in search of a location he couldn’t fully identify.

Still, he was out the door before 8 a.m., a rather grumpy Mick in tow, nerves still jangling with the sense of something gone wrong—not life-threatening wrong, not this time, but still…wrong.

And he was correct.

The two men stared at the empty lot where the Waverider had been, Leonard grimly silent, Mick stunned rather speechless. The ship wasn’t just invisible, it was gone, fled the time and the city again, and Sara was gone with it.

“Aw, Blondie,” Mick said finally, kicking a bit of rock disconsolately. “You just couldn’t take the victory either, could you? For all your words to me.” He turned to Leonard, regret in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Snart. You were right. But…she’ll be back.”

Leonard didn’t blame him, but… “And when will that be?”

“No clue.”

“Not good enough.” He thought back over Sara’s reactions on the ship, about her regretful words about the “revolving door” of the Waverider while they’d waited for the ship to return at the Vanishing Point. About her reaction when he’d reflexively called Central City “home.” About the sound he’d heard while Lisa was telling him about her plans. About how Sara had vanished afterward.

He should have put the pieces together. He should have talked to her. But they both had their own ways of protecting themselves, and not admitting to deeply held hopes was one of those ways. It’d taken everything he had, 14 years ago, to admit to thinking about a future with her, and they both knew how that had turned out.

But it wasn’t too late.

Leonard turned to Mick abruptly, eyes narrowed. “Can they contact the Waverider? At STAR Labs?”

“What?” Mick frowned at him. “Yeah, there’s a way. Doesn’t always work—something to do with interference and the timestream, but…”

Leonard had already turned away. And after a moment, he started to run.

* * *

“Allen! I need you to get the Waverider!”

Barry Allen’s head jerked up from where he stood, talking to a somewhat hungover Cisco Ramon in the Cortex. “Is that Snart?” he asked incredulously. “Wait a minute, didn’t he leave earlier this morning? How did he get back in?”

Cisco, who was nursing a black coffee and regretting the lesser metabolism of his 40s, snorted at the words. “You didn’t really just say that,” he said, lifting his eyes to his friend as Leonard Snart stalked into the room. “Did you _really_ forget what he’s like? Seriously?”

But Snart himself drowned out any response Barry could make, putting his hands on the desk between them and fixing them both with that icy blue gaze.

“Contact the Waverider. Now,” he ordered. Then, after a moment, begrudgingly, “Please.”

Cisco gaped at him.

“Did…did Leonard Snart just say ‘please?’” he asked plaintively, looking at Barry. “Did you change the timeline again, Bar? What’s wrong with this picture?”

Leonard narrowed his eyes, a threatening expression rather mitigated by his next words. “Don’t make me beg.”

Barry decided he’d never heard a plea sound so much like a threat before. Or vice versa. He held his hands up, glancing at Cisco and then back at the former crook. “The Waverider? It’s gone? Wait, Sara took off without you?”

“She what?” Lisa moved into the room behind them, yawning as she pulled her hair back. “Seriously, Lenny? I thought…”

Leonard darted her a quick look. “It’s a misunderstanding. I think.”

“You _think_ …?”

“I can try to raise the Waverider, but it doesn’t always work,” Cisco said hastily before the siblings could get into it. He moved to another desk and console, studying the screen. “I’m not seeing a reading for it right now, so it must be in the timestream. I can…”

“What’s going on?” Ray Palmer entered the room from the same way Leonard had, concern in his eyes, Mick right behind him. “Mick called me to pick him up. He said Leonard took off for here?”

“Sorry,” Leonard muttered, glancing at Mick, who was gripping his cane with a tight grasp. The other man merely shrugged, pushing forward to look at the same console Cisco was.

“Damn it, Blondie,” he muttered, studying the readings.

“Sara left?” Ray stared at them all, looking baffled. “But…I thought…”

“Shut _up_ , Boy Scout,” Leonard ordered. “Ramon, what can you do?”

“I can try to boost the signal and get through, but that depends on where the ship is. And how much Sara wants us not to contact her.”

“If I know Blondie and she’s decided Snart’s better off without her for some stupid reason, that’s probably a damned lot.”

Leonard ignored him. “Just try, Ramon.”

Cisco pushed buttons, muttering to himself, as all five of the others gathered around him. Barry noticed that Leonard, though he didn’t look all that pleased about the unrequested backup, seemed so focused on the screen that he didn’t seem to care all that much about anything else.

But Cisco swore, scowling at the monitor and then taking a big drink of his coffee. “I can’t get though.”

“Try again!”

“What’s going on?” Gideon, looking far more put-together than the rest of them, moved serenely into the room and lifted an elegant eyebrow at the group clustered at the desk. “Did I hear you mention the Waverider?”

Leonard didn’t respond, but Ray did. “Sara took off for some reason,” he informed the android. “And Leonard wants her to come back. Um. I think. At any rate, he wants to talk to her. But Cisco can’t get through.”

“Ah.” Gideon studied Leonard a moment, then nodded. “You’re in love with Captain Lance,” she said definitively. “That was apparent even 14 years ago. Remember, I could see your dreams.”

“What?” Cisco very nearly spewed coffee over the screen. “I mean, they definitely seem to like each other…more than Snart seems to like anyone…and they stare at each other a lot, and…oh, hell, she’s right.”

“You’re an idiot,” Lisa told him affectionately, leaning against his shoulder.

“I know.”

But while Leonard was still trying to ignore them all, Ray and Mick were now nodding too.

“Blondie has a thing for him too,” Mick observed, leaning on his cane. “Lust, at least. All that eye sex over the years. Pretty sure they’ve been banging each other since he came back.” He considered as Lisa groaned. “But…I mean…a lot of us left the Waverider. She’s got this weird thing about people leaving now. Bet she figured Snart was just gonna leave too.”

“Oooh.” Ray’s eyes were wide. “Oh, I feel awful now. I…”

“Can you just try again?” Leonard gritted out, still doing his best to ignore the peanut gallery.

“It’s not going to work…”

“I can boost the signal.” Gideon stepped next to Cisco, on the other side from Lisa, giving Leonard a slightly apologetic look. “But you have to promise that if she truly doesn’t wish to speak to you, you will respect that.”

“I…” Leonard’s month tightened, but he nodded. “I promise.”

Gideon nodded back. “I kept a few tricks, just in case.” She moved to the keyboard. “The Waverider was effectively my body for years; I can always find it.”

“And that’s not creepy at all.”

Gideon’s fingers flew so fast on the keys that even Barry could barely see them, typing some sort of code before she confidently hit “enter” and Cisco nearly immediately crowed with delight.

“Got it!” he said excitedly. “Now…”

But Leonard shouldered him aside, leaning over the console, eyes fixed on the still-gray screen. “Sara?”

* * *

Distantly, Leonard was aware that the others were actually giving him some space now, but they weren’t his priority. Not now.

“Hello?” The voice, however, wasn’t Sara’s. It was Ginevra, sounding tentative and rather young. “Is this STAR Labs? I’ve never seen this protocol before. What is…”

“Hello, Ginevra,” Gideon said, leaning over, her voice kind. “It _is_ STAR Labs. This is my emergency protocol, but never mind that for now. Please get Captain Lance on the comms. Mr. Snart needs to speak to her.”

“I…” Ginevra sighed. “I will try. But Captain Lance is very unhappy, and she will not talk to me.”

“Just try, dear.”

Ginevra’s voice went silent again, and they all waited. And then:

“What is it?”

Leonard’s hands tightened on the desk edge. “Sara.” She sounded exhausted, and sad.

A pause. “Leonard.”

Leonard licked his lips, trying to think of the right thing to say. This wasn’t his forte. “Missing you already, Assassin. Any reason you left me behind?”

Dimly, he heard the others talking around him. He ignored them.

Sara’s pause was longer than he’d like, but after a few moments, she spoke again. “Well,” she said, a certain obviously fake lightness in her tone, “I figured I’d spare you having to explain everything. Goodbyes suck, don’t they? This seemed…easier.”

“What made you think that I wanted…” Leonard took a deep breath, trying not to assume. “What did you think I had to explain?”

When Sara spoke again, there was definitely a frown in her voice. “That you were staying in Central City,” she said bluntly. “Not that I blame you. You probably don’t have that many great memories on the Waverider, and Mick and your sister are in the city. But I…”

Another pause. “I’m tired of saying goodbye. So I took it off both of us. Simpler, right?”

Nearby, Mick sighed, and Raymond said something wistful. Leonard continued to stare at the screen, paying little attention to anything else.

“Can you see me, Assassin?” he said finally. “On the screen? Can’t see you.”

After a moment, Sara flickered into view on the monitor. She did, indeed, look tired, and if it seemed like her eyes might be a little red, he ignored that. She was, like he’d said and meant at the Vanishing Point, more beautiful than ever. And this was one of the most important things he’d ever had to do.

“I don’t want to say goodbye,” he told her then, eyes fixed on hers. “Central City was home, but it’s been a long time. I’m…I’m out of time in a way I can’t explain, and I can’t imagine feeling at home right now anywhere as much as I do on the Waverider.” A pause. “With you.”

A chorus of “awws” rose in the background.

Sara’s eyes widened on the screen. She scrubbed at them with a hand, then focused on him again, seemingly at a loss for words.

“You want to stay on the Waverider?” she asked finally. “Seriously?”

“I want to stay with _you_.” Leonard leaned forward, lowering his voice, trying to show just how sincere he was. “I want to have your back on missions and give the new Legends shit and keep you from beating yourself up too much.” Was that actually a small smile he saw?

He met her gaze, doing his best to pretend the others weren’t around him. “I want to be the boy toy you keep in the captain’s quarters to shock the kids. I want to have enthusiastic sex everywhere possible on the ship. Including the captain’s chair. _Especially_ the captain’s chair.”

Distantly, he heard Cisco make gagging noises, Gideon sigh, Mick laugh out loud, and Lisa say, with disgust, “Lenny, I did _not_ need to hear that.” He continued to ignore them all.

Now, Sara really was smiling, and somehow, Leonard was smiling too.

“Sara. I don’t want to leave,” he told her. “I never did.”

She studied him a moment longer, still smiling, a light in her eyes he didn’t know he needed.

And then: “On my way back, Crook.”

“Glad to hear it, Assassin.”

* * *

And somehow, he was then back in Barry Allen’s minivan, crammed in there with Mick, Ramon, Lisa, Gideon, and Raymond, Ramon given the responsibility of driving while Barry ran ahead to be sure the Waverider didn’t somehow return to an empty lot.

And it was just as well, because Sara had apparently broken some sort of record, landing the ship just as the van pulled up and Leonard climbed out before it was barely at a full stop, eyes on the Waverider, or rather, on the hatch as it opened, and Sara appeared.

She stood at the top of the hatch, while Leonard paused at the bottom, both watching the other, a certain tentativeness in the air again.

“Hey, Captain,” Leonard said finally, stuffing his hands in his pockets just to have something to do with them. “You made good time.”

Sara’s lips twitched. “What happened to ‘Assassin?’” She lifted her gaze briefly and scanned the other watchers, but her eyes went right back to Leonard.

“Well, maybe I’m branching out.” Leonard smirked at her, slowly moving up the ramp. “Since I’ll have to get used to it.”

Her smile grew. “I don’t know. Can we have two ‘captains’ on the same ship?”

“I think we’ll manage.” Leonard told her, stopping just as his head was a fraction lower than hers, looking up at her. “I mean, we both know who’s in charge here.”

Sara smirked at him. “I think we do.” She watched as Leonard took the last few steps to meet her, and they studied each other a long moment before Mick, still standing near the minivan, had had enough.

“Just kiss already!” he bellowed. “For fuck’s sake, stop torturing everyone!”

But they were ahead of him. Sara went up on her toes, wrapping her arms around Leonard’s neck, and he closed the rest of the distance with alacrity, pulled her against him as Mick and Barry whooped in the distance and Raymond sounded like he’d burst into happy tears.

It was the worst of cliches, Leonard knew, but the rest of the world faded away. Certainly, he didn’t care about it, right now.

All he cared about was Sara.

* * *

Sara finally broke the kiss after…seconds? Minutes? Hours? She smiled up at Leonard as he blinked somewhat dazedly down at her, feeling, perhaps, just a little smug about that reaction.

Not that she was any steadier, really.

“Shall we?” she asked him, nodding into the Waverider.

“We shall.” Leonard shook his head again, then offered her his arm, smirk reappearing on his face. “Gotta move the captain’s boy toy into her quarters, after all.”

“Mmmm…sounds like fun…”

But the peanut gallery wasn’t done with them yet.

“Captain,” Gideon called out, amusement in her tone, “I’d like to talk to you about coming back onto the ship for a while. I have a lead on John Constantine…a Ms. Zatara in Midway City…”

Lisa, of all people, spoke up next. “I’d kind of like to give time travel a try myself,” she pointed out. “As long as, ah, that ‘captain’s chair’ thing doesn’t happen…”

Leonard made a bit of a choking noise, but Sara laughed, feeling lighter than she had in…weeks? Months?

It was going to be OK.

“We’ll be back in a few days,” she called back over her shoulder. “Or maybe weeks? I’ll entertain the idea of new or returning Legends then. For now…we want the place to ourselves.”

And she walked back into the Waverider, Leonard at her side, the future looking very bright indeed.

They were home.


End file.
